Premier League will never be the same on television again
NETFLIX has revolutionised the way we watch television. Spotify has made it easier and cheaper to listen to our favourite music wherever and whenever we want. Now, the landscape of how we watch Premier League football may just be about to change.
It was at a club shareholders meeting last year that Manchester United chief executive Ed Woodward declared that streaming live sport was the ‘future of content consumption’. He’s not alone in thinking it.
Amazon Prime will this week take those infant steps into the new world when it broadcasts all 10 Premier League midweek matches exclusively on its platform. The tech giants have paid an estimated £90million to show 20 games a season for the next three years.
Premier League bean counters have been hoping this day would come for a while. The league may be richer than ever, fuelled by a global television deal worth more than £9billion, but for the first time since 2004, the domestic rights failed to increase when the new deal was settled last year. Sky and BT paid a combined £700m less than they had before.
It is no surprise that the Premier League have turned to the TV and media world in their three failed attempts to appoint a new chief executive. Susanna Dinnage was originally named as Richard Scudamore’s successor but chose to stay at Discovery, BBC executive Tim Davie turned it down, before David Pemsel, formerly of the Guardian, resigned before starting the job after revelations about his private life.
If ever they manage to find someone able to start the job, the negotiations for the next deal which begin early next year despite being only a year into the current one will be high on the priority list. There is a feeling among industry experts that the value of the domestic rights could continue to fall as supporters find different — and, crucially, cheaper — ways to consume their football.
A report this month by finance company eToro found that the price of match tickets for the ‘dedicated fan’, one who goes to all 19 home games and at least five away games, has risen just one per cent since 2014-15. The price of a TV subscription has gone up 40 per cent.
‘Premier League is the crack cocaine of broadcasting but broadcasters have to be careful,’ Kieran Maguire, lecturer in football finance at Liverpool University told The Mail on Sunday. ‘If they abuse fan loyalty with their pricing, people will just walk away.’
To watch Sky Sports on Sky costs about £40 a month if you include all the standard monthly fees involved. On Virgin it’s nearer to £70. The Sky Sports package on Now TV costs £34 a month, or £199 for a 10-month season ticket if you bag the offer ahead of the season.
‘It’s a generational thing, too,’ added Maguire. ‘I don’t resent paying money if I get a good product in return. The issue with the likes of Sky is that they have not got their pricing right any more. They have not evolved.’
That has led to another huge issue for the Premier League: piracy. If you are a football fan, you will likely have heard of Kodi Boxes. You’ll know a friend who has one. You might have one. The legal multimedia boxes that people illegally load up with applications that allow viewers to stream Premier League matches to their televisions at a fraction of the cost, if any at all. Amazon’s own Fire Sticks can also get patched.
The Premier League, naturally, are trying to clamp down on it.
‘There is no such thing as exclusive rights because everything can be found within minutes, online for free,’ said Chris Tyas, global head of privacy at Eleven Sports.
‘As a broadcaster that is very challenging. If you want people to part with money your offering needs to be far superior.’
That’s where Amazon come in. That is where there is the chance to change the game.
Their plan is to use Premier League matches to entice new users into a free trial to watch football and, while they are there, may find they like the product and renew or, like many, just forget to cancel.